Don't do it! Yer gunna kill 'im!

Today, my registrar said, “Dr Zimble, I’ve got a fascinating case to show you.”

Well, have you ever seen an irate zimble? The hair stands on end, the face turns fire engine red and the arms fly back and forth.

“Warning! Warning Will Robinson!”

Only the indiscriminate use of hydroponic Roma tomatoes on an otherwise edible salad sandwich makes for an angrier Zimble.

There are no “fascinating cases”. People come to hospital because they are very, very unfortunate or a bit stupid or occasionally both (Mavis, that’s you). One finds every groove of human existence in the medical ward and enough pathology to make ones head spin but no one person is a “fascinating case”.

My registrar got the message when I asked him to grab an auroscope and check, yet again, for the elusive moth that Mrs Hemplestead is certain resides in her left ear while I joined the telephonic queue at Pay Office.

What is fascinating is why medicine is so often turned into television drama and nowadays, reality TV. Tonight there are no less than four medical shows listed in the program. Why medicine?

I want to know the trials and tribulations of the guy who controls the water temperature of the Beijing Olympic pool. I want “House of the Dead” brought to life. I want a vegetarian cooking show, like Two Fat Ladies with tofu. What I want is the hero’s journey: the triumph of the brave, the selfless, the bubble permed. [Mavis, take that last bit out right now...no, it's not funny]. Heck, give me unconditional love in the digestive tract of a deep space monster and I’ll be happy. Am I asking too much?

Television medicos go back a long way. By way of childhood deviancy and later, study and occupation, the zimble has been an interested observer. Take, for example, the publicity photo (above) of Jack Klugman in "Quincy M.E." It’s beautiful in its irony because he doesn’t know that forensic pathologists look at microscope slides and not photographic slides.

ER stands as an institution of season cliff hangers, Emmy award nominations (104) and strangely, hordes of moribund medicos. A helicopter whose tail rotor takes a surgeon’s arm returns a few episodes later to kill the surgeon by falling on him in the ER parking lot. This is the typical ER demise. These doctors are some of the unluckiest people you are ever likely to meet.

Unfortunately, they’re also some of the most incompetent. They’re sloppy and slow. They never keep contemporaneous records. They bring their myriad social and emotional problems to work. They are rude to their patients, the nurses, the relatives and each other. They don’t listen to their seniors, they don’t acknowledge best practice and they are not infrequently unethical. Then, they are ever so surprised when they are fired from their jobs or are hauled in front of disciplinary panels or are dead!

While I’m at it, why are they so loud?

“F.B.C. …CHEM SEVEN…CROSS TABLE C SPINE… STAT!”

I understand what they want but why are they shouting?

While I’m still at it, what about the direction? In the multi-trauma scenes the doctors and nurses attend the patient en masse, crowding around him, with we, the viewers, looking up from the patient’s feet.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, let me put in that chest tube for you, you bubble headed boo-boo!”

In reality there is you and there is a nurse (and a medical student who is collapsed, fainted, in a corner of the room).

“No! Stay where you are! Don’t try to get up!”

One morning, a long time ago, my world and that of the medi-drama collided. I was finishing my night shift, collecting my purse and keys. Leaning back on the handrail in the lift, I swung my stethoscope across the tops of my shoes, watching it as it went back and forth, as you do. The lift stopped on the second floor and the doors opened.

I looked up and acknowledged, with a small nod, one of the hospital administrators and a young woman with a head of wondrously long red curly hair. We smiled and she and the administrator got off at the next floor. I thought nothing more of it other than that she looked too well to be a member of staff.

A few weeks later, I sat down to watch the much hyped new television series, “Emergency Action” (or something). We knew it had been filmed locally, as there had been a blurb in the paper and the ED docs said their stuff was being borrowed.

The series was dire in so many ways and mercifully, lasted perhaps, three episodes. The best and funniest thing was spotting the locations for the ambulance shots. The vans would zoom up one Brisbane freeway ramp and barely seconds later, zoom down another some twenty minutes across town on a different freeway. Why not simply turn the ambulance around and zoom back down the ramp you’ve just zoomed up? We don’t mind.

Meanwhile, back at the hospital, about half way through the first episode, there is a scene involving an intern who has an argument with someone outside a lift. The intern then gets in the lift and leans back against the handrail and swings a stethoscope back and forth across the tops of her shoes.

“Holy mouldy macaroni Batman! It’s the redhead!”

There are only two medi-dramas I cannot watch. One is another dire Oz drama called “All Saints”. The writing is so bad it should be called “All Saints turn in their graves”.

The other is “House”. My problem with House is that it is based on the premise that good diagnosticians use algorithmic thinking and when that doesn’t work, there is some random element of God given genius that provides the answer. Perhaps this is the way it is in the blessed nation but in the rest of the world it doesn’t work like that. Most of us don’t have the time or inclination to use a white board and genius is rare.

Another misrepresentation of some medi-dramas is their prognostic licence. One mob of researchers reported they had watched all the episodes of ER and Chicago Hope during the 1994-1995 viewing season and 50 consecutive episodes of Rescue 911 broadcast over a three-month period in 1995.

“There were 60 occurrences of CPR [cardiopulmonary resuscitation] in the 97 television episodes. In the majority of cases, cardiac arrest was caused by trauma; only 28 percent were due to primary cardiac causes. Sixty-five percent of the cardiac arrests occurred in children, teenagers, or young adults. Seventy-five percent of the patients survived the immediate arrest, and 67 percent appeared to have survived to hospital discharge.”

In reality, cardiac arrest is most often caused by coronary artery disease, mostly occurs in the middle aged and elderly and is survived to discharge about 5% of the time. I don’t necessarily agree but was once told the only reason to resuscitate is so that when there is the rare occurrence of an arrest of a young person, you are practised in the skills that will give them a chance. I guess futility doesn’t make for interesting television.

Back to the matter at hand: it's the hands that matter. When I watch a tele-medico at work, I immediately know whether they ‘get it’ by observing their hands. Most will prod and poke as though they’re testing the reliability of a li-lo.

Rarely, I see a quality to the touch and a confidence in the movement of the hands that usually only comes with experience. When it is there, it’s lovely to watch and I appreciate it.

Well, that’s enough of my babbling and by the way, M.A.S.H. is on - it's the one when the unexploded bomb lands in the centre of the compound. Hawkeye! [Swoon].

Ringing in the New Year.

The New Year is traditionally the time to make resolutions, turn over a new leaf (or several branches if necessary) and gird the loins for the year ahead. Without dissolving into melancholy, it can also be a time for zimbles to look back at the year just gone and consider the lessons learnt.

Some concepts should be obvious from the get go. Take tinsel for instance. One can never have too much tinsel. Red, green, silver or gold, boa-esque or threadbare; it is all good. When you think there might be enough tinsel, by definition, there is not. Find that spare nubbin of Blu-Tack, twirl that banister and loop that lintel. Slide on the sunnies and accept nothing less than a supernova of sparkle! Holly and mistletoe be damned!

Other revelations arrive unexpectedly like coconuts on a tin roof. Stella Artois is not a benevolent society lady who organises charity tennis matches. “A stitch in time saves nine” does not refer to quantum physics and the space time continuum. The Zimble-Mobile, the Nissan Pulsar, is the post-millennium equivalent of the 1979 Datsun 120Y. (Now that hurts.)

The ideas that are most important don’t come suddenly though. They percolate ever so gradually through the thick zimble skull. This year’s idea, when it finally arrived, was a doozy.

Burnout is bad.

Such an obvious concept and yet one so difficult for zimbles.

When you can no longer see it coming, when you think you are fine but you’re not, it is too late. At the 'too late' stage, the only cure is to stop and learn how to say “no”. "No, I won't be able to do that today. Would tomorrow morning be okay?" "No, I can't work that weekend, it's my nephew's birthday party and I want to see the rocket cake," and so on.

By learning that simple word you are doing yourself and everyone around you a big favour. In my own zimbly fashion, that’s what I did this New Year. I also bought some more gold tinsel, which helped enormously.

Target 140: place unused ice cubes in your pot plants.

The 4 minute shower

As you can see, the Queensland Water Commission is giving very useful advice. The average use of water across the city has hit a nadir of 127L per person per day. I can go with "yellow let it mellow, brown flush it down" but generally speaking, it is becoming harder to stay cheerful about the drought.

In first year psychology tutorials we were taught that in difficult times, it can be helpful to write down the pros and cons of a situation. [Really?] So, after years of perpetually fine weather, here are my lists to date.

Good things about the drought:

~It doesn’t rain.

~Losing favourite umbrella in 1998 no longer an issue.

~Cockroaches large enough to have landing lights rarely seen.

~Drought fighting community spirit to the fore (expect to hear re-worked WWI songs any day now).

~Free 4 minute hourglass egg timer from Queensland Water Commission.

~Jungle of weeds growing with less vigour; fewer withering looks from garden-obsessed neighbours.

~Less spent on lawn-mowing (countered by increased cost of lettuces and avocados though).

~Tomato vine on back door neighbour’s fence dying.


Bad things about the drought:

~It doesn’t rain.

~Everything is grey-green, brown-green or yellow-green but never green-green.

~Garden-obsessed neighbours very sad.

~Previous swamp lands drained. Urban sprawl sprawling. New houses built without insect screening. Dengue fever epidemic when drought breaks (not joking).

~The 4 minute shower.

~Large family of cane toads now resident under water mains cover: assistance and or moral support from Mission Control (Mum and Dad) required in order to change tap washers.

~Price of veggies going up (more consideration given to virtues of string beans and frozen spinach).

~City may run out of water (Brisbane a weatherboard Fatehpur Sikri?)

Reminiscing

Hmm. Really not sure what to blog about today. Let's see... multi-coloured anodised aluminium picnic cups, holidays at the beach with the sand so hot you had to run across it down to the waves, smelling Mum's good perfume when she and Dad went out to dinner parties, tap shoes repainted and covered in glitter for the end of year concert, The Goodies, pavlova and ice cream, afternoon summer storms, Burt Bacharach albums playing on the stereo, games of Monopoly that went on for days, tucking into the latest Trixie Belden mystery, wanting long straight blond hair like Agnetha, staying up for re-runs of The Sound of Music on the new colour TV, chocolate topped icecream cones at the drive-in cinema, school trips to the Golden Circle pineapple factory. Sigh. I miss the Seventies.

Remington Steele

'80s big hair and silk suits.

Being a fan of something or someone is a very odd thing. An independent observer would find no good reason for the fanaticism but yet there it is, lasting, sometimes, for decades.

Fandom is something like a parallel universe but more real than the science fiction concept. A fandom has its own energy and life force that merges seamlessly with "real life". Friendships are forged, social etiquette is obeyed and (God help us) money is spent (on everything from replica costumery to fannishly appropriate car number plates).

It used to be that if you mentioned "fandom" to non-fan acquaintances, friends or family, a sympathetic and slightly disapproving look would appear upon their faces, as if to say, 'poor you'. There was the instant assumption that "fandom" meant you had no life beyond video tapes, fan clubs and 'zines' and you were bordering on Asperger's syndrome, or worse still, you were, in your leisure hours, an obsessed and dangerous celebrity stalker.

The reality is, in fact, quite the reverse. The fans that I have met over the years are generally highly articulate, warm and interesting people with large imaginations and colourful lives. They do everything normal people do and they participate in one or more fan communities.

They are carefully observant of 'the rules of engagement' when it comes to approaching their favourite artist and go out of their way to kindly but firmly kerb the enthusiasm of the occasional weirdos.

At the same time, they include and encourage all comers with a serious interest in their fandom without concern for race or creed, social or educational background, habits or quirks.

A quarter of a century ago, I became a fan of an American television series called "Remington Steele" starring Pierce Brosnan as 'Remington' and Stephanie Zimbalist as 'Laura'. It was a romantic mystery comedy about a young woman who runs her own detective agency.

The following is something I wrote when one of the fans, who also happens to be a former LA Entertainment Industry PR person, decided to write a book and asked for contributions.

"It is 1982. Every Wednesday night at 8.30 pm, a 15 year old Australian schoolgirl puts down her homework to watch ‘Remington Steele’. Without exception, it is an hour of pure enjoyment. More than that, the girl studies harder in maths (because Laura was a math’s major), she exercises every day (because Laura went in a triathlon and owned at least three Lycra leotards) and she is wary of eating too much chocolate (Laura was a hopeless chocaholic). The girl writes her one and only fan letter and receives in return a signed photo of the actors from Studio City. It smells of an exciting far away place and has to be carefully opened with a fruit knife so as not to tear the envelope.

By 1987 the same girl is in medical school. Disappointingly, no one in her study group looks anything like Pierce Brosnan (or James Read for that matter) and worse still, Channel Nine Brisbane are airing the very last episodes of Remington Steele. But it’s OK. There are bound to be summer repeats of the show to record on the new-fangled VCR (that is, if the cricket isn’t on – oh, let there be rain!)

Goodbye cheerful 80s, hello 90s. The girl is a resident at a large public teaching hospital. It’s all about impossibly long hours, endless night duty, post-graduate study and exams and secondment to remote outback towns. For all practical purposes, the decade disappears into the bowels of a grimy medical ward - everything but the treasured Remington Steele recordings. Even though every line is memorised, every scene and gesture familiar, she still watches. There’s much to glean: how to greet a client, how to sit and stand with perfect deportment, what to wear and how to wear it and how to remain feminine in a male-dominated professional world without playing the feminist card. (It isn’t so clear whether career or relationship should come first but never mind.)

And now, in her thirties, the girl is just past Laura’s age and is running her own practice. The challenge of hiring staff, dealing with government bureaucracy, completing the paper work and choosing the colour of steno pads brings a whole new appreciation for Laura’s situation. The new millennium also brings September 11th, Bali bombings and family tragedy. But amidst all that, the Remington Steele VHS tapes still work and there is the promise and excitement of DVD releases with special extras!

Today, ‘Remington Steele’, still lovely, still fun and still brilliantly written, is there, a soothing balm and tonic. Being a ‘Remington Steele’ fan, for this girl, is like stepping through life with a favourite song softly humming in the background, a perfect antidote to the humdrum of the day. To the cast, to the writers, to the crew, she says and will always say, thank you."

Sisters

I've really been enjoying Jem Shaw's blog about his trip with his brother, Martin and friend, Adrian. The trio descend not once but three times into deepest darkest France to repatriate (de-patriate?) to England, a very nice looking, little, yellow aeroplane.

Some of Jem's comments remind me of the vicissitudes of being the eldest sibling, in my case, to a sister, five years my younger. [Don't tell her I said that because according to said sibling, she is "twenty-nine" and I am "twenty-nine and some months" (cough)].

Of course the main thing, with respect to the relationship, is that if your little sister is a barrister with an LLM hons, then, no matter what, you never, ever, win an argument, ever. However, Naughtiness (not, said sibling's real name) has over the years caused her older sister some not insubstantial degree of consternation.

Like any brave young Aussie, she followed in the footsteps of the great Northern adventurer, Clive James, by moving to London for two and a half years. She took the usual slow, upwardly mobile course of living in a cheap B&B in Earls Court, then a bedsit in Wembley and then, when a brick came through the window, a share house in Battersea.

It was not the 'falling towards England' that was the problem but the crackly reverse-charge international phone calls landing like scud missiles at un-godly hours of the morning. The calls tended to come in three main types.

The most worrying type always started with "Dude, I'm sick," in a teary, high-pitched tone. Most people have probably experienced similar calls but how many of them are expected to put FRACP level medical knowledge into action at a distance of 16000 km at two in the morning?

You start listening, intently, for subtle signs of delirium, dyspnoea and sometimes dysentery and then you stop listening and start trying to remember if you have ever heard anybody mention the English emergency number: not 911, that's American, not 000, that's here, not 666, it wouldn't be that. Perhaps the international operator would help?

The next type of call always started I-just-wanted-to-let-someone-know-where
-I-was-going-but-please-don't-tell-Mum-and-Dad." This was followed by, for example, the taking down of a complex series of Aeroflot flight numbers, a shared and semi-accurate recital of the Cyrillic alphabet and the rote learning of the address and telephone number of an obscure Moscow youth hostel.

The third type was certainly less vexing but just as perplexing. On answering the phone, one would hear the cacophony of a pub on quiz night and then the following: "Dude, what is the name of the body of water between China and Taiwan?" um, Formosa Strait, "Ta Dude, see ya!" or, "Dude, what was the name of the base in Hawaii Five-0?" um, Iolani Palace, "Are you sure?" um, Yes. You get the picture.

Still, where would I be without someone to tilt their head to one side, examine mine as though it were an aubergine and say with some gentle exasperation, "You didn't put any product in your hair today, did you?"

A Buggy House (3.7.06)

Huntsman spider (non-dessicated).

Some dwellings are just plain buggy. For no good reason certain houses are frequented by far more than their fair share of cockies, spiders and ants. No amount of pest control can defend a "buggy house." It's the law of the shag pile in there.

I once lived in a buggy house. My sister was staying there too and she agreed, it was a buggy house. The worst invaders were the huntsman spiders. These spiders, as big as your hand, would appear on the walls, waiting and watching. Once disturbed they would run and jump at and cling to anything that moved, like superheroes of the bug world.

One day, a super-sized huntsman ventured inside. My sister and I, being good citizens of the world, tried to shoosh it outside with a broom and when that failed, we attempted to catch it in an old tea-towel and then shake it outside into the garden.

Our efforts were in vain. When we reached a consensus that this particular spider had done its dash, I turned environmentally unfriendly, put my Buddhist tendencies aside and reached for the spider spray.

Having received a lethal dose of spray, the spider disappeared. We searched and searched with not a sign of the spider to be found. Oh well, we thought, it will turn up with the next vacuuming. It didn't.

Some three or four months later, my sister and I ventured to O'Reilly's Guest House in the rainforest. It was just after breakfast and we were preparing to go on a day-long walk. My sister already had her walking boots on and was cleaning her teeth in the bathroom. I was sitting on the floor of our room: left sock on, left boot on, right sock on and then it happened!

As I slid on my right boot, my heel crunched to the sole. I immediately knew what it was and started convulsing with laughter. My sister came running, bemused by her sibling's sudden seizure. I couldn't speak. All I could do was tip the contents of my boot, one dessicated huntsman spider corpse, onto the carpet.

Chocolate Surprise Cake (8.4.06)

The nicer side of Cow Bay, F.N.Q.

Once, whilst working at a Far North Queensland hospital, I met a very unfortunate man and an equally or perhaps even more unfortunate baker.

A middle aged man was asked by his wife to organize a nice iced chocolate cake for her demure bridge party which was to take place the following day. Dutifully, he drove to the local bakery and spoke with the baker who said, “No problem."

It just so happened that a bunch of ferals from Cow Bay had had the same idea: a nice chocolate cake. (Not a bridge party). They trucked into town, dreadlocks waving in the breeze, and went to the very same baker. Varying the pitch of their monosyllables as much as they could, they grunted what they wanted and again, the baker said, “No problem”. (Actually, you wouldn’t want to tell a bunch of ferals that there ‘was’ going to be a problem, even if you couldn't understand them.)

The next morning, the man stepped out into the steamy sunshine, got into his slightly muddy 1978 Ford Falcon 500 and drove to the bakery. It was at that precise moment that his difficulties began.

The baker had stepped out for a short time and so, on his arrival at the bakery, the man spoke to the baker's wife. She found two lovely looking, seemingly identical, iced chocolate cakes on the shelf, picked up the first and gave it to the man.

The Cow Bay ferals lurched into the bakery just as the man was leaving and collected what they expected to be their ‘very special’ iced chocolate cake.

The bridge party was a hit with the local ladies but the man, relegated to the kitchen to wash up the tea cups, felt a bit left out. Gradually, over the course of the morning, he consumed the entire huge remaining portion of the chocolate cake.

As the rubbers concluded and genteel gossip filled the living room, the man staggered in from the kitchen saying he didn't feel quite right. His wife, a sensible lady, suspected a stroke. With the help of some of the bridge players, about five of them, she drove the man to the hospital.

The baker was eventually contacted (the mobile phone connection along the crab pot path in the nearby mangrove swamp was not very good back then). He was able to confirm that the ferals’ chocolate cake, the 'very special' chocolate cake, the one containing the liberal quantity of hashish oil, had indeed been accidentally sent by his wife to the bridge party.

The man recovered to his normal state of excellent health with supportive care. The baker's wife has probably calmed down. The Cow Bay ferals almost certainly won't have calmed down and the state of well being of the baker remains unknown.